Filoli Gardens and Estate

I drove by a sign for the Historic Filoli Center a couple of months ago along Highway 280.

Curious, I googled it and found that it's a historic estate with gardens from the early 1900's, now open to the public.

I went and checked it out last weekend. The estate has many rooms to wander through so you can daydream of what it's like to live all rich and fancy. The gardens were my favorite part---lots of different flowers, pools, ponds, and meandering paths. It reminded me of a mini-version of the Boboli Gardens in Italy.









Later, we got our picnic lunch out of the car and ate next to a sign saying "no outside food or drink".

We wanted to work off our lunch, so we looked for a hiking path. We found this:


We didn't see any guides around, but we really wanted to hike.

So we took a little peak. The path immediately led us into a forest. Birds were singing, insects were chirping. Ah, nature...

And then we saw this:


Wow, that must have been a darn big animal.

A hundred yards later, this antler:



And a few steps further down the hill, the inevitable skull:


As intrepid explorers, we foraged on. However, our trail abruptly ended in an open field with an old bathtub.


Thus ended my day at the Filoli Center. I recommend that you go and have an adventure.